


Wanting to Give (As Good as You Got)

by OtherCat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harem, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Oh god another slave fic why, Other, Pale Polyamory, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, bullet point fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 02:52:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13649925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: In which Dave is an exotic new pale prize for up and coming warlord, Karkat Vantas.Based off of the excellent"Melt Me, Mold Me,"by BirchBow and"Gotta Love What You Do"by silverpaper_toffeepaper.





	Wanting to Give (As Good as You Got)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Gotta Like What You Do](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2197623) by [silverpaper_toffeepaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverpaper_toffeepaper/pseuds/silverpaper_toffeepaper). 



  * So our hero, one Dave Strider finds himself in the “wash him and bring him to me” situation made famous by Ming the Merciless and Dale Arden. He has also committed a grave faux pas by introducing himself and has been dragged off stage left for a good scolding by Kanaya.
  * Karkat Vantas is immediately soothed by his pale concubines, who are extremely Outraged. They are very surprised to find out that aside from the initial shock, Karkat is not angry at all. In fact, he confesses that he had long cherished the fantasy of one of them giving him their name, and in other circumstances, he would have been delighted by such a revelation.
  * Eridan immediately tries to claim credit for this unusual delight, but is shot down by Kanaya, and also Karkat himself.
  * Karkat tells them how much he pale-adores them and how good they are at what they do, and it's very strange because reciprocal pale is not something that's really happened before? They are very flustered by this!
  * He tells them they did a good job with his prize, and he could have told them something like this was going to happen. And he tells them about the last perigee clusterfuck and meeting a human slave who had been sent to his room as a combination insult/entertainment.
  * "We ended up bitching all night long and I sent him back with compliments, not knowing I was supposed to have killed him in the day. No, not for any complicated plotting reasons, apparently the human was just that annoying."
  * "Though apparently not so annoying that they'd just cull him, or actually want to. Let someone else do it, sure. Do it themselves, never. This is another reason they were a fucking idiot, for not properly appreciating him. Again, you all did a good job with him."
  * The concubines continue to be flustered by this, but manage to get the shooshing train back on track. Karkat spends several blissful hours in the arms of his pale concubines.
  * He leaves them with a number of directions concerning his prize. (Whose name he is not going to think about. He’s not likely to forget it, but he’s also not going to use it.) The first is to find out any of Dave’s interests and skillsets and allowing him to use them. The second is to not bother with any further lessons. The third is to have him be in the main lounging area when Karkat returns, though he is not to take part.
  * This leaves the head concubine and his second a bit confused about how to discipline Dave. There’s a certain implication in the directions that suggested that Karkat didn’t want Dave disciplined for his indecorous introduction. At the same time, Dave broke a very, very important rule.
  * “I thought he understood,” Kanaya says with mournful exasperation. “We talked about it, about the importance of distance and anonymity and playing a role.”
  * “Maybe that was too delicate for him,” Gamzee says. “It might’ve gone out one ear and out the other for all he’d care.”
  * “So you’re saying we should discipline him?” Kanaya asks.
  * “No, just explain a little blunter,” Gamzee says, and goes off to talk to Dave.
  * So Gamzee goes off to have a chat with Dave, who is confined to his room. Dave is nervous and defensive and also pretty angry!
  * “Seems like a motherfucker like you’d _want_ a little distance,” Gamzee says. He’s a little angry too, because that debut could’ve gone so sweet, but it got fucked up. (Even if it did give a few hints for future scenes.) “With all this emotional fuckery you don’t want any part of.”
  * Dave tries to blow it off, rambles about being sent to bed without supper and the like. But Gamzee isn’t having any part of it. He cuts right in and pulls up stuff that Dave doesn’t want to talk about, stuff Dave doesn’t want to hear.
  * There’s a fight that’s mostly Dave whaling away at Gamzee, who is mostly holding him and letting punch until Dave is exhausted, and kind of clinging to Gamzee, who is more or less shooshing him, if shooshing worked at all on humans.
  * “Now see how good letting your feelings out is?”
  * “Fuck you,” Dave replies, and gets gently papped.
  * “Nah, I ain’t flushed, and I don’t think I could get proper pitch on for someone pitiful as you,” Gamzee says.
  * Dave tries a sucker knee to the groin, but it doesn’t work. He gets papped some more and then half-dragged, half-carried to the harem quarters dining hall. The next hour or two involves Kanaya and Gamzee asking about his skillsets and hobbies while he eats dinner.
  * Dave does end up telling them about music, djing, and drawing. He also talks about dead-things-in-jars which draws the excited attention of one of the pitch concubines.
  * Gamzee is delighted that Dave raps, and immediately challenges him to a slam, much to the dismay and horror of other concubines.
  * Dave is allowed to pursue his interests, though he is still not allowed to go anywhere without supervision. Supervision is usually Gamzee, but also Kanaya. Dave is kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
  * Gossip and rumors are intense in the quadrant quarters! No one quite knows or understands what Karkat wants from the newest inmate of the harem, but Gamzee thinks he has a suspicion.
  * See, Gamzee never _started out_ in the pale quarter. He started out a mostly feral pit beast picked up by the warlord Karkat overthrew. Karkat went into the pitch quarter looking for a fight, and presented with a baited, frightened-angry Gamzee, shooshed the living night shadows out of him, and then ordered that he be put in the pale harem. This is something that’s been kept private: only the head of the kismesis quarter knows what happened, or why Gamzee was retrained for pale.
  * So, Gamzee has a _notion_ of what’s going to go on the next time that Karkat comes by the pale harem and is completed vindicated about it when after about an hour of restful snuggling and detailed discussion of feelings, Karkat calls Dave over.
  * During this entire scene Dave has been sitting a little apart from the pile, and given something that should have been decorous and quiet to do: drawing on a sketch pad. It wasn’t, because instead of a nice still life or life drawing, Dave drew figures inspired by ancient Grecian pottery and a book of ancient Alternian art. Some of them are extremely rude.
  * He’s a bit deer in the headlights at being called over. (Karkat doesn’t call him by name, just says, “you, come over here,”) He starts to put his sketch pad aside, but is told to bring it. He has no idea of what he’s supposed to do. Dave tentatively tries to do a pale move, but Karkat goes, “No, let me see your sketches.”
  * The other concubines can see what he’d been drawing and they don’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed. Karkat finds the art amusing! In between looking at the sketches, he asks questions about how Dave has been getting along, and also how Dave ended up in the pale harem.
  * Dave bullshits a little nervously, and Karkat looks up and says. “Do you really expect me to believe that? No, really, what happened.”
  * Dave, who is still pissy about being “rescued” (and the whole situation seemed like a rescue at the time, kinda. They’d talked all night, and they both bitched about Slimey Assbut the Pirate King, and then Karkat got Slimey by the short hairs and then _yanked_ , and made him spill about his actions against some of Karkat’s territorial concerns. And Dave’d been added to some kind of bloodprice thing, and then Dave found that he was _being kept_ instead of you know, _being freed_ like he thought was going to happen for some obviously stupid reason.)
  * So Dave tells the whole damn story. First they thought that since he’d been pretty pissy at the time that he should be trained in the kismesis harem. The head of the kismesis harem, a skinny teal with the most _terrifying_ witch laugh ever decided he wasn’t fit for the pitch harem. Something about him not being the right kind of angry, and not the right kind of contentious. Then they tried him in flushed and he got rejected straight off because oh hey, he’s pissed off at Karkat. Ash just kinda laughed and shut the door in his face, and somehow, somehow he ended up in pale where at least getting cornholed wasn’t on the menu.
  * “Oh, that couldn’t have made anyone happy.”
  * Dave is like, _“no shit.”_
  * The concubines are scandalized but are trying to assure Karkat that no, of course they didn’t mind having been the last resort for finding a place for Dave!
  * Karkat does not believe them. “I wondered where you might end up,” he says. “I suppose you ended up in the harem because my head of house figured you were pitch, because of the circumstances under which I acquired you. I thought I might see you as a valet or some other position where I’d see you every day once you were trained.”
  * “Yeah like that’s going to be a thing,” Dave says, ignoring various glares. “Ooo, alien exotic slave boy. They don’t expect much out of me except being alien and exotic.”
  * “Well I’m not exactly sorry you ended up here. It was one hell of a surprise though,” Karkat says, and he smiles at his concubines. “And I’m sorry that you’re mad at me for keeping you. I wanted to do you a good turn, and also stick it to our friend Slimey.”
  * “Couldn’t you have done that _without_ keeping me?”
  * “I’d worry about you,” Karkat says, raw and so honest the concubines are flustered by the amount of pale and frankly, a little jealous that Dave’s on the receiving end of it. “Even if you made it back home and were able to somehow send me letters or something I’d worry. Also, one of my enemies might target you or, fuck, I don’t know. It seemed like a better idea to keep you, even if it pissed you off.”
  * “Because I have your colors.”
  * “That and I want to take care of you.”
  * “Well shit,” Dave says. “What the hell am I supposed to say to that?”
  * _“That you’re honored by his attention, you doorknob,”_ growls one of the concubines who might or might not be Feferi.
  * “I’m sure he’s doing the best he can,” Karkat says. Dave’s told he can leave, and Karkat spends another couple hours snuggling with his concubines. (Dave sticks it out for at least thirty minutes before absconding for his room.)
  * Gamzee is completely vindicated by this revelation, and shares it with Kanaya. He also shares the situation that led to him being moved to the pale harem. “I think he’s been wanting something like that for a while now, taking care of a brother.”
  * “But he does take care of us,” Kanaya says. “He treats us very well.”
  * “We all don’t have any problems,” Gamzee says. “None that we care to tell him about anyway. We all have to be serene and be his listening ear, giving him advice and palest affection. He aint ever had to pap one of us,” Gamzee sounds a little wistful about that. “And he has the kindest way about him. I was sad as anything when I found out I wasn’t going to be getting any more paps from him.”
  * “Am I so bad a replacement?” Kanaya asks, a little pettishly.
  * “You’re fine as-is Kanaya-sis,” Gamzee says. “But if _he_ ever sets frond to your cheek in a conciliatory manner, you’ll know why I ain’t forgot it sweeps after.”
  * So Dave’s position in the harem is “Someone his Lordship can care for/advise/soothe.” That’s his spot.
  * He pretty much doesn’t care that it’s his spot, and doesn’t actually know what to do about having his own little territory staked out in his Warlordiness’ attentions. He pretty much does his own thing and Ming the Merciless stays infatuated with Dale Arden’s charms.
  * Kanaya, the ashen two-wheeled device of the quadrant harem keeps an eye out for political shenanigans and reports them to Gamzee who has his own way of dealing with politics. (A nice friendly conversation involving chucklevoodoos strong enough to make even a seadweller uneasy.)
  * (Dave insists he can take care of himself where politics are concerned but no, no he can’t.)
  * He does win over the musicians in the quadrant harem with his compositions and soundscapes, and he and Nepeta from the flushed block are in an art round-robin with Terezi in the pitch harem.
  * So he has allies.
  * His part with Karkles the Conqueror is thirty minutes to an hour of bitching, mild arguing and advice. (Karkles gives it instead of receiving it in Dave’s case. This is fine with Dave. Fuck if he’d know what to do about handling talks with Chucklefuck the Mighty or Dipwad the Fierce Butt Mangler.)
  * There are occasionally questions about how he’s getting along with the others. (No one likes a tattletale, nope. The hell is he going to tattle about the other inmates.) He’s occasionally asked about his past. (Dave’s pretty careful with that too, for an entirely different set of reasons.)
  * Dave is in general more or less chill with this situation. It is a lot softer than what he had to do with and for Slimey the Pirate King. He would like to not be in this situation at all, but it’s an improvement. Also, Karkatta the Hun is growing on him, as are other members of the quadrant harem.  
  * Probably mostly not because of Stockholm Syndrome.
  * Karkat is happy with his “prize” and is reasonably sure that he is reading Dave’s cues and issues correctly. They talk, they argue, Karkat discovers something new about his prize.
  * He knows his concubines are not happy about the seeming quadrant blurring. He knows at a certain point he would have been disturbed by the quadrant blurring, but-- he isn’t actually opposed to a pitch diamond or even a flushed pitch with his prize.
  * “It’s not upsetting to me,” he tells one of his seadweller concubines. “Any more than being a little ash right now is,” he grins at her flush. In a more serious tone he says, “You know, if you had any problems, you could tell me right?”
  * “Nah, that’d ruin the perfect and delightful fantasy of what the fuck ever,” Dave mumbles.
  * The female seadweller flushes bright pink and glares at Dave. “You!”
  * Karkat paps her, a soft little pat against her cheek, a stroke along her jaw. “Do you have any problems?”
  * “N-not really,” the seadweller says, leaning into Karkat’s hand. “There’s alwaves a little conchflict when someone new is brought in,” she continues.
  * “I know a little something about being new,” Karkat says. “I didn’t visit the harems for perigees after I overturned that bastard because I worried you’d all hate me platonically.”
  * “We wouldn’t have, my lord,” one of the other concubines says. “You’re kind and you actually _listen_ to us.”
  * “And you don’t punish us when our advice is…less than it could have been,” another concubine says.
  * I always appreciate your advice, even when you turn out to be dead wrong,” Karkat says, looking directly at the male seadweller, who is denying he’s ever given bad advice. “I didn’t say it was bad, just wrong. Come up here.”
  * The seadweller approaches, and Karkat smooths away the frown. “You’re brilliant but sometimes you’re kinda dumb about people, that’s all.” The seadweller huffs, and cuddles down beside Karkat. The female seadweller, has cuddled down as well, starting a gentle scalp massage while other concubines stake out an area to caress or massage.
  * “This is the part where my prize usually absconds,” Karkat says, looking with considerable amusement at Dave, who is looking increasingly uncomfortable.
  * “No I’m totally chill with all the salacious snuggles,” Dave says, eyes firmly averted. 
  * “Really? You look kinda uncomfortable.” 
  * “He surely does,” the tall indigo says with a lazy smile. “Maybe I could do a thing about that?” 
  * Dave is almost as fast as the indigo. Almost. “Goddammit,” he says, and doesn’t bother struggling. “Soothe me big guy, his lordship wants to get his voyeur on.” 
  * “Hush, you,” the indigo says. “You really want to go?” 
  * “I don’t even know,” Dave mumbles, face red. 
  * “I was mostly teasing,” Karkat says, fuzzy voiced already. “I wouldn’t make him--or any of you--stay if you didn’t want to be cuddled.” 
  * So Dave stays, and Gamzee rubs the back of his neck and his shoulders while Karkat gets cuddlepiled. It’s nice if also extremely weird, and Dave doesn’t mind too much. He ends up explaining to Gamzee, the other concubines and Kar the Nubby Impala about the ancient “This is Fine” comic/meme and how it is applicable to his current situation in a number of ways.



**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly a collection of the little bullet point thing I'm doing on my [Tumblr](http://othercat2.tumblr.com/) I have no idea of how much longer it's going to be.


End file.
